Much ado was made about “One Today,” Richard Blanco’s inaugural poem for president Barack Obama, but also worth checking out is Paul Muldoon’s “For Barack Obama: His Second Inauguration.”
Presidential Poetry
Necessary Losses
“When people are young adults, they have these packs, or tribes, that they form. Those connections are very real, and yet another, more powerful social narrative is that you’re supposed to pair off and have children—and never see your friends again. In the case of the gay world, there’s an additional element, in which you’re supposed to spin away from your straight friends and be part of a gay world. Both ideas of adulthood are sad to me, and I was attracted to a group of friends as a lost paradise, and one that there’s no way to keep.” At The Paris Review Daily, Anna Altman talks with Caleb Crain about his new book, Necessary Errors.
Mother Tongue
"Or again, does a 'newsagent' really need to become a 'news dealer,' a 'flyover' an 'overpass,' a 'parcel' a 'package,' or in certain circumstances 'between' 'among' and 'like' 'such as'?" How to sound American.
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Paprikitis
Our own Garth Risk Hallberg cops to a serious case of “Hungarophilia” in his New York Times review of Tamas Dobozy’s Siege 13.
No Room for Others
African-Americans make up no more than 2% of employees in editorial rooms. In case you’re wondering why publishing is so white, Publishers Weekly reports that unconscious bias is the biggest issue.
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Longreads
This January, Penguin Random House, Goodreads, Mashable and the National Book Foundation are sponsoring National Readathon Day, a holiday which encourages Americans to join together for a marathon reading session. If you’d like to take part, you can start a fundraiser to help support reading education, or else enlist your friends and family to read with you on January 24th from noon to 4 p.m.
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Chandler’s Poetry
Before cutting his teeth as novelist and screenwriter, Raymond Chandler tried to make it as a poet. Here are some early poems from the author of The Long Goodbye.
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